EPD: Man arrested after shot fired from his apartment kills neighbor

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Police arrested an Evansville man on a preliminary charge of murder-reckless homicide after they say he fired a gun in his apartment and the bullet traveled through his wall and killed his neighbor.

Ricardo Abreu, 32, was in the Vanderburgh County Jail on Saturday morning on preliminary charges of murder-reckless homicide and shooting a firearm into an inhabited dwelling.

The incident occurred Friday evening in the 1500 block of North Roosevelt. A man returned home "from a quick errand" and found his wife, Toni Bittler, in their apartment with a gunshot wound in the torso, according to a police news release.

Bittler, 41, was taken to St. Vincent Hospital where she died.

While investigating, police found "what appeared to be a bullet hole in the wall that separated the victim's apartment from the neighboring apartment," according to the release. They also found evidence that a gun was fired in the neighboring apartment.

Police arrested the man living there.

A woman fled that apartment with a small child before officers arrived, and police have not yet found her, according to the release.